Sound and Fury
by serpentnine
Summary: Fragile wing-plating crumpled under his talons. "It's not like they're worth anything anyway. Nobody cares about an obsolete scraplet like this." He gave Ratbat another shake for good measure, the little mech crying out in sharp ultrasonic yips of pain.
1. Chapter 1

A cowrite with HopeofDawn, set in the same universe as her very excellent Giants Of The Earth saga, found on archiveofourown(dot)org. Rated T+ for now, for violence and disturbing images.

Thanks to femme4jack and Merfilly for the use of the word 'cohort'.

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There was graffiti beside the niches this orn.

Kilometers above, the metal walls of Iacon's towers were burnished, polished, gleaming in the reflected light of a billion distant stars. Holograms played off those circumvolving spires, a never-ending dance of light and shadow. Here, the same walls were roughened with neglect, in an atmosphere thick with corroding gasses.

The heat folded upon itself, layer after layer, undisturbed by the tidal wash of lighter hydrogen and carbon monoxide that swept the extruded spines of the towers, far above. Light seemed filtered here, the right-of-way markers a fitful glow which cast every mech with a yellow-green tinge.

The Quandary wasn't the mines, and it wasn't the Pit - but sometimes it seemed kin to both.

Longtime residents would probably have argued. There were few of the roaming empties here, those miserable mechs stunted by many vorn of energy starvation. Autophages scurried in places, tiny clicking drones that pincered apart debris and carried pieces into the smelters. Most mechs in the sprawling district had a directive and a directive's accompanying rations, however meager. A few levels up, refineries supplied more fuel - for those with the black market credits to pay. Occasional patrol sweeps kept an uneasy kind of peace.

Which made the laser-carved scrawling seem downright out of place, if one thought about it. Already, the graffiti was beginning to vanish - a pair of drones worried at the cut edges, laying down fine petals of sealant and iron dust, working in their simple way to repair by increments the body of their sleeping god. As soon as an enforcer happened by, he would doubtless obliterate the message and drones - and a fair portion of the wall - with a few blasts. The open wound would attract more of the little bots, the gap would seal over, the scars would weather away; in a quarter vorn, not even a trace of gleaming metal would hint at this crime.

But until then, the message remained, silvered and brazen, wrought in glyphs as tall as a mech.

_You live the deception._

Soundwave gave the inscription only a glance; there was nothing in either the glyphs or the way they were written that would give evidence to the author. To stop and stare would invite questions for which he had no answers. But a glance was all he needed to ensure the inscription was filed away, tagged and correlated with all the incidences he had seen, both here and elsewhere. The pattern was unfolding, he saw, spreading outward like fissure-cracks upon Iacon and beyond. And interestingly, was not confined solely to the lower levels, to those mechs like himself: the forgotten and the outcast, those deemed obsolete and scorned for their lack of function. No, these fissures had snaked their way through the highest levels of Cybertronian society. There might not be any graffiti marring the shining walls of the Towers, the buttressed halls of the War Academy in Vos, but the evidence was there, if one knew how to look. Patterns of association, of rivalries and resentments and discontent that spread outward, touching everything.

Soundwave had seen this pattern before. Once again, it seemed, Cybertron would not learn from history, but simply relive it.

Still, while the larger patterns could not be ignored, they were not what concerned him at the moment. Out of necessity, their own survival had to take precedence. He turned down a narrow lane, sidestepping a drone busily piling up its small collection of debris. His footsteps rang heavily over the pitted plating of the walkway as he descended into the multilevelled warren of their sector's living quarters. Here all the units were stacked one upon another, polygonal-chambered rooms squeezed into an exterior shell to maximize the amount of usable space, with little consideration for aesthetics or amenities. Soundwave paused before the entrance to their assigned unit, fingertips touching the battered plating. Acknowledging his own impotence, his failures; then setting them aside.

Transmitting the code, he stepped inside, ducking his helm to clear the lintel. The hatch irised shut behind him with the grind of metal on metal.

"Brooding again?" Buzzsaw said, greeting him with his usual lack of politesse. Perched on the back of the only full-sized seating in their tiny quarters, the flight-framed symbiont looked up from their shared datascreen.

"Evaluating," Soundwave replied, leaning down to inspect what his symbiont was reading. "Buzzsaw: discovered new data?" They no longer had the access they once did, nor any way to bargain or bribe their way into more, so only the public databanks were available for their perusal. Very little of it was of any worth. All the complexities and variances of any new discoveries were sieved out by the AIs and information comptrollers, in an effort to make the result more palatable for public consumption-and comprehension-by less-specialized mechs.

Buzzsaw shook his helm, sharp-pointed faceplates pinched tightly together in frustration. "No. Rereading old archives. They've edited the historical data on dead-end research avenues into astrophysics and stellar cartography again. *My* data is much more complete."

The too-thin deckplating trembled with the footsteps of another large mech moving past this unit on the walkway outside, perhaps on the way to his own quarters. The vibrations roused Ratbat from his uneasy recharge, where he clung to the underside of an exposed length of corroded cabling. His optic shutters slitted open, optical calipers whirring faintly as they adjusted to the dim light of the monitor. "Mainframe's research?"

Buzzsaw craned his neck back. He didn't have far to look - the room was little taller than Soundwave. If the big mech spread his panels to their full splay, they would have brushed the ceiling - and probably both walls as well. Buzzsaw's thin plating clicked as the leaves slid across one another. "Flame's. Charge and parity symmetry in quantum chromodynamics."

"Oh." Ratbat spread his flight surfaces, the antigrav studs there glowing with a faint charge. He dropped from his perch into a short glide, small claws scrabbling as he landed on Soundwave's shoulder. _/Early spacebridge theory,/ _he sent, offering the relevant applications of Buzzsaw's find to his host,_ /and the third-era line of semi-stable Hadron disruptors./ _ The force of long habit led him to pull up the overview files, preparing and organizing them for Soundwave's easy access. He queued up data regarding Flame himself, too. Information was rarely useful unless ready to hand and efficiently presented, in Ratbat's estimation.

The short talons on the tip of each of his wings hooked neatly under the edges of his carrier's armoring plates, keeping the little symbiont upright, even when Soundwave moved. Still half in recharge, Ratbat nosed at his host's upswept helm fins, a silent plea. All of the symbionts had trouble completing an entire defrag cycle outside their carrier - even when they'd had adequate energon, maintenance, and quiet. For Ratbat, especially now, it was nigh impossible. Even minor disturbances roused him.

Case in point: the present clinking from the wall vent. The opening had no grille, was nothing but a simple cable-choked gap over the upright docking closet - itself a cheap replacement for a proper recharge berth. Laserbeak's intricate, smooth-toned curses could just be made out. "Impudent, clap-clawed spawns of an oxidizer spill," a few inaudible, panted glyphs, and the scrape of something comparatively heavy, "closed the access panel thrice this orn!" Another clank, and Laserbeak's lashing tail appeared, then his haunches.

Supple as an autophage drone, with wings tucked tight, the lithe flightframe could find hidden ways into or out of almost any structure, could slip between wall panels with ease. But not while dragging a covered canister nearly as big as himself. Buzzsaw's thoroughly-amused chirp of greeting made his class-brother freeze, twist around to turn his optics on the room. Oh. "It seems you've returned a breem early," Laserbeak pointed out loftily, attempting to subtly jam the canister back into the gap.

Soundwave gave his wayward symbiont a level look. "Laserbeak: will explain activities." Amusement warred with annoyance; it was obvious that Laserbeak had been up to some surreptitious foraging. Soundwave disliked the inherent risks of such activity; fast and silent Laserbeak might be, but bargaining with mechs more than ten times his size was a dangerous proposition. It also brought up the question of what Laserbeak had found to bargain with; if they were to deal with angry mechs looking to strip the plating from a certain symbiont's frame, Soundwave wanted to know sooner rather than later.

Still waiting for his answer, Soundwave obligingly unfolded the heavy armor on the front of his chassis. A simple carrier-code triggered the opening of the compartments cradled within his frame, shielded under several layers of armor and inextricably linked with his own systems. Lifting a hand, he stroked two fingers briefly against Ratbat's much-smaller helm. _/Rest,/_ he sent, surrounding the command with _reassurance/welcome_.

This, at least, he could still provide.

Wings and helm drooping, Laserbeak performed an about-face maneuver - while clinging to the lip of the vent - that ought not to have been possible for anything with backstruts. Gripping the canister in his talons, he flared steel wings and launched himself to his carrier, surrendering his prize to Soundwave's palm. "I found supplies; Ravage's plating rasps so much, a mech can get no recharge," Laserbeak said, settling his slight weight down on Soundwave's unoccupied shoulder. His claws were longer than Ratbat's, pricking a little where they curled under his carrier's armor.

_/An old strategist, Emissary class, at Maccadam's. Lost Redwhisper's entire Primon saga, when he was upgraded to monitor the road cameras. We struck a bargain./ _ Laserbeak's glyphs over the link were colorless, carefully neutral. Security monitoring required the ability to split attention to ten thousand links; a task for which a tactician's singular, goal-oriented logic was not usually suitable. The processors were different, some of the drive modules were different. A mech's memories didn't always survive the partial refitting. Some mechs retained just enough to know what they had lost.

Laserbeak dipped his head in approximation of apology, finding Soundwave's neck cables and nipping along one, grooming the thick support like he would his own flight surfaces. The place where the cable disappeared under the armor of Soundwave's collarplate was scuffed almost free of color nanites, abraded by too little maintenance and the corrosive atmosphere. "Besides, Ratbat positively squeaks."

Already climbing with relief into the haven of his host, Ratbat growled. "I do not!"

"Peace," Soundwave commanded. Accepting the apology, he let them all feel his approval and pride at Laserbeak's bargain. "Soundwave: grateful for additional supplies, approves of performance of function. Our services, now required by few-but at least not yet forgotten." Waiting until Ratbat had finished settling himself in, his frame folding down impossibly small to fit into his recharging dock, Soundwave resealed the armor over his chassis and levered himself down onto the empty seating platform. Ratbat would likely fall swiftly back into recharge, but for the moment he was still awake; Soundwave could still feel his thoughts over the link they all shared, listening, evaluating their discussion in his own particularly precise and ruthlessly efficient way.

"What is it?" Buzzsaw inquired, craning his helm to peer up at the canister in Soundwave's hand.

Soundwave inspected the canister, which was well-marked with glyphs. "Graphite?" he said, glancing at Laserbeak for confirmation that the contents matched the engraved label. Laserbeak nodded, his apologetic droop turning into a more upright stance as he basked in the glow of Soundwave's approval.

"Oooh. That will feel nice," Buzzsaw said happily, stretching his wings out to full extension and fanning the overlapping plates. Laserbeak shot him a narrow look, and Soundwave could feel the hum of a tightly-banded discussion between the two flighted symbionts. A more paranoid mech might have wondered what they were plotting; but Soundwave had been a carrier for too long not to know when to give his symbionts some privacy. Living beak-by-helm as they did, it was often the only kind of solitude any of them could get.

Which brought up another question-the location of his last symbiont. Turning his attention to Ravage, he pinged for a location-ID, sending a query over their link. _/Ravage, status?/ _He wasn't overly worried; of all his symbionts, Ravage's frame was the sturdiest, built armored and adaptable so that he could spend long orns in the field, chasing down remote encampments of researchers.

The return reply took a moment to issue. It came on a very narrow band, and was stripped of locating data. _/Online and within functional parameters, Soundwave. En route now. One joor./ _ The link bled a little, impressions of shadow and pressure and heat filtering through, as if Ravage were otherwise distracted. Or concealing something. Perhaps aware of his misstep, the symbiont added, _/Request report upon arrival./ _In nearly everything, the carrier's will was ruling law; Ravage had no particular right to determine the time or place of his debriefing, or to conceal anything for that matter. But he could ask.

Enfolded in the utter safety of his carrier, Ratbat was afforded - permitted - deeper access to link-level communication than the external symbionts. Fighting the spark-deep, soporific sense of tranquility that always resulted from docking, the solidwing cassette stirred a little at Ravage's request, uneasy.

The two other flyers exchanged obliviously conspiratorial looks, optics spiraled wide. As fast and whipcord-slender as a turbofox, Buzzsaw struck with just as little warning, darting from his perch to snatch the canister of graphite from Soundwave's grip. Laserbeak launched himself just as quick. The pair of symbionts landed on the decking in a hissing tangle of flight plates and talons, directly and inconveniently behind their seated carrier. Claws scrabbled over the canister. It took both little mechs working in unison to open it, as their talons lacked fully opposable thumbs, and the container had not been crafted with small mechs in mind. Chirruping sly delight, Buzzsaw dipped his beak carefully into the compressed cake of ultrafine powder, crumbling off a piece.

Soundwave pinged them with a cautionary glyph-if the canister spilled, it was unlikely they would be able to obtain more-but otherwise ignored their antics. Instead, he focused on Ravage, his attention sharpening in belated concern.

_/Ravage: state reason for delay./_ His connection was attenuated at this distance, with only the most basic of vital data available to him. Still, he did not sense any injuries or impairment, only an ambiguous sense of distraction edging Ravage's end of the link. _/Situation, dangerous?/ _ Carrier protocols stirred, bumping protective-imperatives higher in processing queues, ready to activate.

Ravage huffed a harsh vent. _/Not anymore,/_ he sent, then paused, a shadow of quiet dismay, a dull kind of confusion, crossing the link. _/It is complicated./_

_/I'll hold him down -/_ Buzzsaw sent over a wide band, his beak full, _/- you get that rotor./_ Both flightframes launched themselves back at their carrier. Prickling talons scrabbled at the joints of Soundwave's helm, and a cruelly-barbed tail wrapped - carefully - around his throat. The lightweight mech was at most a negligible fraction of Soundwave's mass. "Now you are at our mercy, Archivist," Buzzsaw crowed, transferring the chunk of powdery graphite from beak to one limber set of claws, his right wing flailing over Soundwave's shoulder as he fought for balance. "Do not think to move. Laserbeak, he is pinned!"

The other agile flightframe had already insinuated himself close, clinging vertically to a heavy segment of the ornate armor that banded Soundwave's flank. Finding a juncture, Laserbeak snaked his head fearlessly between the plates, to the big hip joint beneath. Chirring in mirth, the symbiont found the stiffest of the massively powerful rotors there and began scrubbing the soft graphite into the working seam. The razored edge of his beak proved useful in pressing the powder into couplings that had gone far too long without proper maintenance.

_/Understood. Ravage: return within one joor. Report any-/_ Soundwave broke off in surprise at the two flighted symbionts' sudden 'attack'. "Buzzsaw: expl-!" His vocalizer stuttered with a surprised squawk as Laserbeak aimed unerringly for the sensitive joints beneath his plating. Embarrassment warred with pleasure as the slick powder began to do its work, easing aches he'd had so long that he'd accepted them as part of his normal functioning. "Laserbeak, Buzzsaw: cease activities," he said, after a moment to regain his composure. "Supplies, limited, required for symbiont maintenance." One canister of graphite could conceivably be stretched to cover the smaller symbionts; but not if the majority was wasted on his frame. It was only logical that four should benefit from their supplies instead of just one.

Buzzsaw made a rude squawk of dissent. "This is not part of our usual supplies," he retorted, tightening his tail-grip. He dipped his head, using beak and talons to slather his chunk of graphite into the gap between shoulder armor and cervical cabling, working it into the roughened surfaces of the flexible struts. The powder that drifted down was a balm over the delicate, finely tuned moving parts. "It is a windfall, and windfalls should be enjoyed. By everyone-even stubborn carriers." He stroked the underside of Soundwave's masked jaw with his tailtip in teasing reassurance.

Laserbeak vocalised a hum of agreement, reaching deeper for the secondary motility rotor. The bladed back of his neck bumped against a rank of processor relays, and he froze, moved carefully lower. His carrier's discomfort registered mainly as a muted twinge through the filter of the symbiont bond, but Laserbeak could risk no damage. Medical allotments were beyond the reach of an obsolete class.

In truth, mechs as angular and plated as Laserbeak or his class-brother ought not to be servicing internal components at all, even to this limited extent. During the war and for a time after, medical drones, sometimes even tower-trained medics, had done this for Soundwave thrice a quarter. A carrier could be enormously valuable. Soundwave certainly had been - even moreso after the two flightframes had selected him.

That had changed with the securing of the research libraries. The access restrictions.

Laserbeak withdrew carefully, with a quietly sent apology, and went back for another two pieces of compacted graphite. Midair, he traded a large chunk over to Buzzsaw, and then returned to his work. The grit-free, non-conductive powder was so fine, it filtered into even the smallest gaps like a cloud of molecular ball bearings, easing the wear of metal upon metal and encouraging natural repair processes. After attending to the biggest weight-bearing gears, Laserbeak moved on to his carrier's legs - the places where cables bunched under lighter armor, the articulated sockets, the heavy capacitors, the scarred places where plate scraped over plate.

Buzzsaw finished dabbing one last drift of graphite into Soundwave's shoulder, and cast his carrier a narrow glance. The big mech did not seem much inclined to escape. Excellent. A moment's hesitation, and Buzzsaw unwound his tail. Graphite in beak, he began climbing with prickling talons down to Soundwave's left elbow - the one that had begun to click whenever the carrier moved.

Though removing either of the symbionts forcibly would cause damage, Soundwave could still command their obedience, order them to stop. But the two flightframes' pleasure in surprising their carrier was infectious, and he found himself reluctant to rebuke them for their efforts on his behalf. And truthfully-he had perhaps been more in need of maintenance than he had realized. Soundwave made a mental note to do what he could with additional cleaning and self-repairs, once he had time and privacy. Better to head off what smaller problems he could, before they worsened into damage that required specialized attention they could no longer afford.

His symbionts, at least, were reasonably well-maintained. Carrier protocols included full specifications for the maintenance and repair of symbionts' specialized systems. Only the most severe damage would be beyond Soundwave's capacity to repair; though their limited supplies of energon, lubricants and other parts-especially ones small enough that they could be adapted for symbiont frames-were a constant, low-grade worry.

"Laserbeak, Buzzsaw: ensure that enough remains for use by all," Soundwave ordered, but allowed himself to relax into their ministrations, shifting tensed limbs to allow better access. "Your efforts, appreciated," he added, moderating his tone. Unlimbering a few secondary manipulator cables, he used them to lift the canister, bringing it forward to allow for easier access.

"Of course. Wouldn't want to listen to the whining if we didn't share, after all," Buzzsaw replied cheekily, taking advantage of Soundwave's change in position to wind himself more securely around the larger mech's arm, using his tail and wings for balance as he delicately poked more graphite into the intricate crannies of the offending joint.

_/...don't whine, either.../_ Ratbat's sending was just a whisper over the comm link, a faint stirring of awareness in a thoroughly somnolent frame.

Buzzsaw's murmur of amusement vibrated through Soundwave's elbow as the symbiont nibbled at the joint.

At the big carrier's pede, Laserbeak finished powdering his nub of graphite into Soundwave's ankle assembly. Clicking in quiet contentment, he step-hopped to the sinuous manipulator cables. Jumping lightly up with casual familiarity, talons careful on the thinly-armored sensory appendages, he perched just long enough to peck another piece of graphite out of the canister. Then he headed for the other ankle.

Buzzsaw worked his way down to Soundwave's right hand and all the tiny, interlocking servos there. It took him some little while to finish properly. His class-brother soon jumped up and began attending to the remaining limb. Satisfied that almost every part they could reach of their carrier had been afforded at least a cursory coat of the mechanical lubricant, Buzzsaw arranged himself in the big mech's lap, delicate flight and armor plates flared so that he seemed twice his proper size. "My turn," he declared, thoroughly pleased with himself and helm craned back, looking up.

"Buzzsaw: claiming precedence over Laserbeak?" Soundwave said, amused. Laserbeak was the source of this unexpected bounty, after all, and was more than due some manner of reward.

Forestalling any potential squabbles, several of his smallest fiberoptic tendrils extended, plucking shards of compacted graphite from the canister and insinuating themselves expertly under Buzzsaw's flared armor and wings, dusting and caressing the tiny, intricate systems sheltered beneath. And since he was not limited to merely two hands-Soundwave turned his attention to Laserbeak, lifting one arm to allow the flighted symbiont to perch more comfortably. "Extend wings?" he requested, delicately lifting another small pinch of graphite between the fingertips of his unoccupied hand.

Chirring in pleasure at the attention, Laserbeak quickly obliged, spreading out the delicate overlapping plates of the flight surfaces and bending his neck to allow easier access to the complex jointed assemblies at their base. Using his fingertips for the broader gaps, and another set of fine tendrils for the more sensitive areas on both flight-frames, Soundwave found himself enjoying their pleasure almost more than his own. In public, their dignity and his own both demanded a certain distance. Only in the privacy of their quarters could he afford to pay them such attentions, to take the time to stroke vulnerable joins, to inspect small limbs and finely-articulated armor for damage. He found some minor areas of wear here and there, along with some scuffs on the polished ebony surfaces of Laserbeak's plating. But no obvious damage, he noted with satisfaction.

"Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, experiencing discomfort?" he asked, checking over the fine points of beak and talons, the flexible articulations of their necks.

Laserbeak stepped up onto his carrier's wrist unperturbed, attending the the back of Soundwave's jointed, gauntlet-like armor for a few moments, until the slow bliss of having his own articulations serviced overcame the will to move. _/He does ask us that every time, does he not?/_ Laserbeak sent his class-brother over a broad beam, confident he'd be overheard. He surrendered his last fragment of graphite to a cable and stretched his beak wide, luxuriating in the feel of the smallest manipulator cilia stroking over the external hinges of his jaw. The tips of each fiberoptic were small enough to work into his finest wing-rotors, spreading cool graphite dust to the deepest of his tiny internal components.

_/Yup. Think we must've picked a good one,/_ Buzzsaw sighed, melting into the careful touches. Wholly trusting, he splayed out across the big mech's lap in surrender. The bladed collocations at the end of each manipulator-sheath never so much as brushed him. Aloud, he vocalised, "Absolutely, Soundwave. Terrible discomfort, really. Agony. There's this one spot..." his vocalizer stuttered. "Ooh. Nevermind."

Laserbeak vented softly, slumping, completely unresisting as he was handled, inspected in every detail. _/Best one,/ _he corrected lazily. If he moved too much, the edges of his armor could easily pinch and damage the fiberoptic tendrils that clustered at the end of the thicker, plated cables - they were terribly fragile. But it was, fortunately, not difficult to stay still under such ministrations. It was considerably more challenging not to simply drop into recharge.

Amused and pleased by the symbionts' response to his ministrations, Soundwave took his time, indulging himself with careful strokes along their sensitive, thin-armored frames. Eventually, a manipulator snaked around the seating, its agile cilia retrieving and replacing the canister lid. After a little longer, when it became evident that both small symbionts were steadfast in their determination to impersonate mechs completely lacking in hydraulics, the cables began nudging them into transformation. Buzzsaw gave in first, rousing just enough to angle himself into the warmth of his docking slot. Laserbeak clung to a shadow of awareness for a little while more, his EM field undisturbed. Soundwave stroked the little flyer until every leaf of armor, every flightplate, lay flat and smooth against the symbiont's frame.

At last Laserbeak too eased himself through his transformation, and slid into his place. The sensation of each symbiont linking their small systems - energon, coolant and lubrication, and more - with Soundwave's own was sharp, but brief. The carrier's ranks of filters and galvanic cells warmed as they handled the extra load.

It was quiet for a few breem, save for the whirr of distant activity, the vibrations as mechs moved nearby. The symbionts' small fields glowed gently, contained within Soundwave's own. The half-broken strip of overhead lighting sensed little motion and faded, conserving energy.

A short time later, the hatch of the living unit irised open.

Linked as they were, it was impossible for Soundwave not to feel Ravage's approach; but any other mech would have been hard-pressed to spot the shadow that slipped through the open hatch. Ravage padded noiselessly into the small room, nothing more than a flicker of movement and a sinuous line of silver and black in the darkness, tinged with the scent of ozone and burning metal.

Soundwave inclined his head, subtly relieved by his last symbiont's safe return. "Ravage, welcome." He turned one hand, opening taloned fingers in greeting, but allowed the symbiont to approach in his own time. Ravage had his own way of doing things, and Soundwave found that certain courtesies, while never demanded, were nonetheless … appreciated.

Glowing red optics regarded him silently. Then Ravage moved forward. Seating himself near Soundwave, curling a bladed and sensor-laden tailtip neatly about his forefeet, he inclined his head into that waiting hand.

After a few moments, Ravage's optics nearly shuttered, casting a knife-edged gleam of crimson across the pitted, acid-scarred decking. The bladeframe was warm under hand, hot, like a spark spun too hard and for too long. Metal ashes flaked from Ravage's long, disturbingly-jointed legs; his chassis clicked as it cooled. Finally, the bladeframe bent his plated head so that his optic ridge pressed just lightly against Soundwave's fingers, the leaves of armor lifting to expose the broad hardline port at the back of his neck. _/This is not for the others,/_ he said quietly, on a narrow band.

Soundwave's attention sharpened. It was rare for Ravage to conceal information from the rest of their cohort, and never something he did without good reason. _/Very well,/_ he replied, uncoiling a secondary cable and stretching it outwards, towards Ravage's vulnerable nape. Reconfiguring the cable for secure data transfer was as easy as thought, blue-white fiberoptic cilia stretching outwards to touch briefly, exploring, verifying the familiar port parameters-and then slipped inside, twining with Ravage's waiting connections as the cable socketed into place.

There was no disorientation in this act, not anymore. There had been at first, long ago - back when the high-ranking symbiont had, inexplicably, chosen a carrier so newly sparked he sometimes fumbled the adjustments to his own docking slots. The bladeframe was simply so much lower to the ground than Soundwave, moved many times faster, was far bolder in his explorations. It had taken... some getting used to.

Now, slipping into Ravage's cortex was as familiar as coming home. The cassette's higher functions were a thin shell over a chasm of memory, a well of files accumulated over eons, so deep it was possible it had no end at all.

Soundwave waited, a blue-silver blade locked into that darkness, anamnesis spiralling around him like flitting silver dendrites, each one a shard of memory, a crystalline chain of time and space.

The file unfolded up out of that unspeakable depth, twining around where their minds had merged, and the world expanded - to darting paws and tunnels that bled mercury. The thunder of ongoing mining operations rumbled through every surface. Warped hollows flashed by, some of them containing artifacts last seen by mecha when Cybertron still circumscribed a sun. An impossible chasm gaped ahead. Ravage's strides lengthened, cables bunching with power - and they were airborne for a singular instant, the canyon so deeply carved below them that entire rivers of molten metal poured away into an unfathomable nothing.

Then claws struck steel again, and they trotted around a corner. And stopped.

The chamber ahead should have been carefully sealed against the elements. Beyond that force barrier should have stretched the Solnus archaeological site - a pocket of structures preserved by a chance combination of factors, dating from a time before the Quintessons. Even during the war, teams of academics had worked here, had managed to prioritise enough resources to continue their research.

The scholars were gone, now. An unsparked mining drone had broken through a wall. The remains of the driller still lay half-slagged where molten metal from a disturbed underground stream trickled in. The lava had been flowing for a while; it filled most of the chamber. There was nothing left.

Ravage hadn't really expected there to be.

Something blundered into Ravage's leg, and the symbiont flinched back with a vicious growl. But it was only an autophage, trundling along with a clipped bit of metal clutched in its crablike claws. More little drones issued forth from an irregular crack in the hallway. Simple creatures, they knew only to carry worthless things to the nearest slagging pool and then return for more, though they did that with great dedication.

But these ones... did not carry mere debris. One bore a small optic, oddly curved, crafted for the harsh bromine burn of the Rust Sea. Another dragged most of a fin, brilliantly mottled in silver and green. Leaves of plate armor, like chips of green energon, so recently disassembled the color had not yet faded. A swimmer's fuel pump, surgically severed from its spark chamber. All small parts, too tiny and too specialized for even a minibot.

But not too small for a cassette.

Immersed in the memory, Soundwave had to pause at that realization. Clamping down on the first stirrings of carrier-instinct, he focused instead on analysis, forcing logic to take precedence over emotion as he sorted through the minutae of visual detail that Ravage had carried back to him.

The scraps of armor, the dismembered parts, when taken apart from their context-_left behind, carried away by scavenger claws like unwanted trash_-and pieced back together indicated a single symbiont, aquatic frametype. The unfaded chromatophores suggested that offlining had been recent; Soundwave pulled related data from his forensic archives, cross-referencing it to the minute gradations of color in tiny remains, the subtle graying of the edges of the silvery fin. It confirmed his initial hypothesis; a very recent death, likely only a few joors before. Ravage had been lucky to come upon the area when he had. Autophages were nothing if not diligent in their duties. In less than an orn, there would have been little left to find.

Soundwave reviewed the rest of the memory, searching back to Ravage's initial entrance for other cues that might have been missed, other signs of mechanoid life. But there was nothing there to find; only the spreading molten streams of metal and the drones, disappearing into the dark of a crevice too small for Ravage to enter. The quadrupedal symbiont had done his best, pressing faceplates and tail-tip in turn to the small gap in an attempt to sense what lay beyond, any scrap of sound or scent, the barest flutter of an EM pulse. But the iron had been too thick, the crevice too deep.

_/Evaluation: symbiont death, mischance or murder?/ _he finally asked. There had been tiny ragged edges to the small dismembered parts, but those could very well have been caused by autophage claws. There was no point in speculating why the cassette-mech had been down in those caves in the first place; symbionts went everywhere, often following trails led by nothing more than their own curiosity. Ravage's find was proof enough of that.

Another memory rose up to entwine Soundwave's presence, running in parallel with the first and just as detailed and crisp, though the datestamp marked it megavorn in age. Any mech not built for this would have staggered under the complex weave of input - for Soundwave, navigating the data torrent was simply second nature.

This time, the scene was a stretch of the Rust Sea, the ocean and the air stained red with bromine, the bitter tang of unstable planetary flux on every corroding breath of wind. A set of tracks in the silty metal filings had captured Ravage's attention, until a flash of green from the heaving sea made him scramble back in a lightning flow of blades and teeth.

Sharply-curved violet opics, a razor-line of teeth set into a sinuous frame, virulent green plating, strong stout fins for oceanic endurance and limited movement across land - the mech that drew himself onto the beach was the perfect miniature replica of an oxide shark. He was roughly the same size as Ravage. Interested, curious, the aquatic cassette chirped a symbiont's greeting.

_/...Minebreak did not reach that place on his own,/_ Ravage added, momentarily flashing on the image of green scales sinking into cherry-red molten metal. He paused, pressed his optical ridge a little harder against Soundwave's hand, which even still cupped his head. _/ I did not know his present Master. But the waveframe was always... sociable./_

Soundwave leaned forward, resting his other hand upon Ravage's bowed neck, expanding his field to accept Ravage's discontent, the flickering pangs of grief for an old acquaintance lost. It was more than likely that his symbiont still held data-memories-from Minebreak; most symbionts exchanged information whenever they happened to cross paths. Currency and courtesy both, it was an ingrained instinct for a symbiont to share what they knew as widely as they could, to prevent any chance of it being lost forever.

_/Minebreak's cohort, unlikely to leave him behind,/_ he said, feeling his way around the edges of the puzzle that Ravage had brought to him. Even if the waveframe had somehow gotten separated, and died alone and in the dark-there was no way his carrier couldn't know. No way his carrier wouldn't have attempted a rescue. There was a possibility-very small, and with a very wide margin for error, given the number of suppositions he was being forced to make-that the rest of the dead symbiont's cohort could still be trapped underground. If they were dead, there was nothing Soundwave could do. But if there was any chance they still lived-

His carrier protocols were pinging insistently, rerouting past datawalls as they rose through priority-command queues. Symbionts had to be preserved, guarded. It was unlikely any of the Iacon enforcers would lift so much as a servo to help, much less organize any kind of rescue. Not for mechs that-as far as they were concerned-belonged to an obsolete, outcast frameclass that should have been reformatted vorns ago.

_/Ravage, assessment required. Searching area for rest of the cohort possible?/ _he asked, already checking his own archives for all known chronicler-carriers and symbionts in Iacon. The information was embarrassingly outdated; as their class had fallen out of favor, so had any official attempt at tracking carrier mechs and their cohorts, many of which had been forced to roam far afield, searching for ways to retain their usefulness.

The pressure of his carrier's field felt cool over Ravage's heated chassis. The bladeframe's optics shuttered entirely as he relaxed a little more weight against Soundwave's unyielding frame; the symbiont turned his head to lay his jawplates across Soundwave's knee assembly. The small shift in position disturbed the connection not at all - the multitools clustered at the tip of the sheath kept the manipulator cable locked neatly, firmly, in place. The bladeframe summoned up the appropriate series of files - tunnel images and sensory scans - relying on his carrier for the complex height and hazard calculations.

_/ I can trace a safe path, though whatever hazard befell them may still remain. A search would go still faster with the flyers. If.../ _and here Ravage paused. A symbiont, he knew, was not well-equipped to even process the many variables of a decision like this, and linked to his carrier, he could not keep his worry from seeping over the bond. _/ If there is fuel enough./_ Not just for the search - what if they found the carrier? Or other cassettes?

Soundwave considered the problem, running all the permutations and possible outcomes, weighing them against the known hazards of Cybertron's subterranean levels. None of their cohort were adapted for tunnelling, and Soundwave's own bulk would be a hindrance in the smaller spaces. But Ravage's vast knowledge of Cybertron's layered strata, its tunnels and mines and deep, secret places, combined with the flexibility and speed of his cohort, was enough to tip the results marginally in favor of their survival. The line between success and failure in his calculations, however, was razor-thin. It made him uneasy.

_/We shall go,/_ he decided. _/Tomorrow, after refueling and recharge./ _Ravage was correct in his assessment; even if they found the rest of Minebreak's cohort, it was unlikely his symbionts would have the strength or the energon to attempt a rescue. A carrier, however, could easily bring multiple symbionts to the surface. So Soundwave would go as well, to guard their safety and provide support, and together they would see what there was to find.

Ravage's affirmation - and his concurrence - filtered over the bond. His carrier had made a decision; the bladeframe's fears were dispelled. Trusting in his cohort, Ravage would find the way.


	2. Chapter 2

And the way led them down.

Soundwave's winged symbionts took the open spaces for their own, making short gliding excursions between the curving walls of towers, dodging with agile skill between hanging wires, rarely still. They spread a broad net, sensors and optics alert, picking out items or mechs or sudden movements of possible interest. If their carrier wished, he could see at will almost any aspect of his surroundings from the air.

Ravage took point, tracing their way - along wide highways, sloping tunnels, oddly curved ramps. The bladeframe, when alone, often travelled by ventilation shaft or power conduit, places too small and too cramped for most mechs to move. With Soundwave following, he was restricted to mainly the common ways, crowded and noisy or debris-choked and desolate, but all descending.

A joor or two, and the walls of the towers became rougher, corroded with black-cast iron meters thick. The shining towers and pavilions overhead grew still more distant, their brightness just a gleam, subtle as a memory.

Warframes were more common here - heavy creatures, grounders as tall as Soundwave but several times heavier, or smaller but built to carry mechanotons of weaponry. Black market credits changed hands openly. And the empties were everywhere, pawing through rubble, splayed out in the streets. Many had lost limbs, suffered from rust - many also wore the faded marks of military service. The heat grew uncomfortable, the decking sometimes damp with mercury. Service drones were rare. If discovered, they did not last long - were quickly cracked open for the tiny charge of energon they carried.

A few levels above the bottom, the empties began to look upon even Soundwave with... appraisal. It might not be the Pit, but still, the slums of Iacon were not kind places.

The flighted symbionts did their best to keep well out of reach.

The narrow way coiled at last down a vast curve, marking the very base of one of Iacon's great towers. A black market complex crowded the canyon floor - itself a plain that stretched as far as the optic could see, in the lingering miasma. Open sky was a narrow strip here, a thin rind of stars made soft by the oppressive thickness of the atmosphere. The crowd was likewise dense, char-streaked mechs going about their business amongst stacked cages of chained turbofoxes, slabs of offworld stone stolen from official freighters, sheet metal and supplies of all kinds, stripped parts and weapons, highgrade siphoned from the rations of the useful, and much, much more. The trading grounds, not coincidentally, crowded the perimeter of a great, open mine, and the mecha who supplied black market goods and services did not even bother to conceal their activities.

On the rim of the metalworks, Ravage paused. The void was crossed by walkways, and sank straight down, save for a crumbling road that clung to the edge. The bladeframe paused to eye the heavy traffic entering and exiting the mine. The narrowed gaze of a distant overseer passed over him, unseeing. The overseer bore a disruptor whip, and wore a scuffed autobot brand. _/ I gained access here, before./_ Ravage offered over the bond, indicating a jagged pile of unworked iron and the narrow black gap beyond. He twisted to glance up, towards where the flightframes glided in silence. _/ We will require another entrance./_

Soundwave inclined his head in acknowledgment. _/Symbionts will spread out, search for possible entrances,/_ he ordered. _/Soundwave: will attempt negotiations for access./ _ He had little expectation of success, given that he had nothing to bargain with and few connections of any usefulness in this place. But at least he could be an obvious distraction, drawing attention and affording his cohort the space they needed for their search.

Quick pings of acknowledgment came back from all four symbionts, who quickly vanished into the murk of the thick sulfuric smog. Soundwave turned, and began to make his way to the main entrance of the mine. The overseer did not have the look of a reasonable mech, but Soundwave had gained quite a bit of unwanted experience in being a petitioner over recent vorns. Making his way through the ebb and flow of the crowded walkways, he watched the patterns of the mechs about him, listening to their conversations, upping the gain on his sensory arrays in order to monitor to the overlapping transmissions around him. One never knew what one might hear; and even the smallest bit of information might prove to be of use.

And there was a great deal to overhear. The mecha in this shadowland did not vocalize much, but the shortwave band was dense with transmissions, mostly poorly encoded. The panels folded at Soundwave's back, with their intricate networks of sensors, had little trouble sieving meaning from the tangle.

The warframes had been home for many, many vorns, but still they spoke of battle, of weapons and campaigns. Many of them had, at least, something to trade: meager rations, or metals smuggled from the mines. A great number had been sparked in war, and knew only that - they seemed to have no experience of Iacon at all outside the mines, outside this place. The merchants and civilians complained bitterly about their patrons, about growing scarcity, about the ever more common empties. And everyone grumbled about energy.

The overseer pressed himself back into the wall as a hover-drone convoy, guided by a smaller mech and laden with unprocessed metals, trundled up the rampway. Soundwave's relative cleanliness set him apart, even more than the odd build of his frame. "You there," the autobot growled, shoving a char-crusted minibot on his way. "What you want here?"

Turning, Soundwave inclined his head with assumed deference, doing his best to seem unthreatening. It was a difficult task; he was almost a third again larger than the overseer, who, while a bulkier frame, was considerably lower to the ground. Soundwave was also in far better repair, devoid of the corroded armor edges and char-streaks that marked all the mecha that lived and worked in this sector.

"Soundwave: requests entrance into the mine," he said evenly.

The overseer bristled. Yellow-armored under the grime, his alt-mode was a heavy-load hauler, if Soundwave was any judge. "Yeah? What for? Gonna go see the sights? Maybe pick up some scrap to sell while you're down there? Get outta here-I don't care what kinda fancyplate bot ya are, no one's gettin' inta my mine that isn't paid ta!"

Predictable. Soundwave surpressed the urge to vent a sigh. At least the overseer's indignation was attracting a fair amount of attention. Including most of the nearby mine-mechs, who were using their boss's preoccupation with the interloper to take an unauthorized break and enjoy the show at the same time.

"Pilferage, not intended," he said, more to extend the argument than out of any hope that an explanation would help. "Rescue intended; possibility exists of mecha trapped in tunnels."

The overseer was not impressed. "All of my miners are right where they're supposed'a be," he snapped. "An' if anyone _else_ was sneaking down inta MY mine, than they deserve ta get melted inta slag!" He revved his engine as if to punctuate his point.

"Enforcers, share your opinion?" Soundwave asked.

"Those whiteplates? They wouldn't go down inta my mine even if the Prime himself had his aft stuck down there." A bit excessively hyperbolic, Soundwave thought. Still, true enough, at least for mecha of little importance. And it was obvious that without outright bribery-which he could not afford-there was no chance of shifting the overseer's position.

Resigned to his role, Soundwave set himself to continuing the argument. He had been reasonably skilled in debate once, even if his peers had criticized him for being excessively dogmatic. Taunting a single low-level supervisory mech into a properly loud harangue shouldn't be difficult. Assuming, of course, he could do so without said mech deciding to pound his argument through Soundwave's helm the old-fashioned way.

The overseer grew both increasingly bellicose and vulgar as he argued, drawing still more attention. Soundwave's carrier protocols tracked the progress of his symbionts as they scoured the rim of the mine and the surrounding sloping plain, their task made simpler by the absence of prying optics. And then a proximity warning, not Soundwave's own, flashed through the big mech's systems, a bolt of sudden, imperative awareness.

"...yer nodes numb, or did somebot swap yer processor and gearbox? Prettybot, you gotta have chrome bearing lugnuts if you think yer smoggy reactor-linkage is goin' -" the overseer flicked his optics towards a cluster of miners who were doing anything *but* mining "-inta MY... my - whut the frag?" the overseer paused. Ran a proximity sweep.

Where the Pit had the big mech gone?

.

.

Along the rim of the mine and the iron tailing slopes surrounding it, the three flyers ranged in wide loops, drawing from their carrier's experience of search patterns, from Ratbat's efficiency logarithms. Though there was no interference from the distracted miners, the ground was craggy, buckled and heaped with scree, crossed with crude walk ramps and crowded with merchants, all of which slowed the inspection. Every hollow had to be investigated from several different angles, while avoiding dangling wires and, twice, stray weapons fire. It was a daunting task - but the symbionts were good at finding things.

Small and nearly invisible in the dimness, Ratbat fluttered to the top of a vast mound of scrap, monitoring the acoustical environment for any sense of secret hollows or tunnels. There were a number of smaller cracks - Ratbat watched in amusement as several tiny autophages issued forth from one of these, marching towards the leading edge of the scrapheap, evidently determined in their simple way to clean up the entire pile one fragment at a time. A mech, perhaps the owner of the very same dubious treasure, cursed, kicked the little drones away. They wouldn't last long, with so many empties nearby. Ratbat relayed the locations of a few promising cavities to Ravage, then spread his flight surfaces, preparing to move on.

A trail of steam caught his optic, and Ratbat paused, refocusing. The still was a crude affair, cobbled together out of whatever came to hand. The jagged helm of some offlined mech - audials and all, though it was missing the faceplates and more valuable pieces, served as one of the reaction chambers. Nevertheless the distillation setup had been cleverly assembled. One agglutination of parts was particularly unusual. Ratbat hesitated, glanced around - and then launched himself into a glide for a closer look. The would-be still was quite innovative, actually-partially hidden under an acid-eaten overhang, it was a uniquely efficient twist on the usual process. The end result might not please the silvered palates of the Towers, but Ratbat thought the highgrade produced could be quite uniquely … potent. Possibly even explosive. Was that a-?

-a hand snatched him out of the air, far faster than the little mech could react. "Gotcha, you pathetic little piece of scrap!" Taloned digits dug painfully into one wing as Ratbat squawked in dismay, all dignity forgotten as he flailed, trying to escape from the far larger mech.

Stepping out of the shadows of the overhang, the red-and-black armored mech lifted his catch to show to his companion. "It's not enough we have to deal with empties and those stupid scuttling drones-now we have to deal with flying glitchmice too? I bet this worthless, thieving glitch is responsible for most of the pilfered energon around here, right, Reverb?"

"I am not!" Ratbat yelped indignantly. "I'll have you know I-awrk!"

"Shut it, rodent," the mech ordered, grinning unpleasantly as he shook his captive. "What do you think? He's worthless for parts-should we stake him out, drain his tank and let the drones pincer off pieces instead?"

"Uh-Stoplock? You do know that's a cassette-mech, right?" Armored in blue and purple, the red autobot insignia displayed prominently on one shoulder, Reverb didn't seem to be nearly as enthusiastic about their catch.

"Yeah? So?" Stoplock tightened his grip, listening to the yelping reach an even higher pitch as fragile wing-plating crumpled under his talons. "It's not like they're worth anything anyway. Nobody cares about an obsolete scraplet like this." He gave Ratbat another shake for good measure, the mech crying out in sharp ultrasonic yips of pain.

"Stoplock-cassettes have *carriers*," Reverb hissed. "I don't wanna-"

A sonic pulse rocked the elevated roadway, slamming into both mechs with pinpoint precision. The shockwave tore at delicate systems, inertial dampers and gyros reeling under the screech of distorted sound, and nearby bystanders scrambled out of the way, crying out in surprise and dismay as sensitive audials were assaulted. The two mechs caught at the center of the attack, however, never got the chance. Not before two and a half mechanotons of angry mech hit them like a gravtrain.

A primary cable lashed out like a silver whip, wrapping around the arm that held Ratbat captive. Clawed connectors reconfigured themselves into brutal spikes, sinking past the mech's armor, hacking motor controls. The talons spasmed open; three other secondary cables caught the injured symbiont, cradling him with delicate care.

Pulling Ratbat to safety, Soundwave kicked a teetering Reverb out of the way, a heavy pede crushing the thinner armor where the thorax met pelvic girdle and sending the mech windmilling into the wall. Ignoring the fallen mech, Soundwave turned on Stoplock. More primary cables snaked out, whipping about limbs and spearing vulnerable joints, and a taloned hand punched through the smaller mech's outer plating, tearing it open. Stoplock flailed, trying to bring weapons to bear; new tentacles intercepted them, pulling them aside, spearing into the supporting systems with a strength that belied their size.

Academic Soundwave might be, but that did not mean he was oblivious to the more practical applications of the data his symbionts held. Data that included the weak points inherent in certain frametypes, for instance.

Soundwave stepped in, his prey held effortlessly aloft. "Choice of victims, most unwise," he informed a whimpering Stoplock, sensory panels spread in a threatening display of silver and electric blue. A primary cable, still wrapped around the arm that had held Ratbat prisoner, tightened and began to pull. A metallic scream escaped Stoplock as wiring parted in a shower of sparks, energon leaking from ruptured lines. "Advised never to touch a cassette mech again," Soundwave continued, his words all the more threatening for their lack of inflection. "Query: removal of limbs necessary for memory retention?"

"Ssst-aaargh!" Stoplock's own scream was audible to him only as a muted sound; his higher-frequency audial was shattered, entirely offline, no longer even transmitting errors. He felt each articulated socket of his right shoulder strained to the point of parting, links just beginning to pop out of place, rotors loosening - and screamed again. "E-enough! Please, oh stop, stop please!"

Jerking a piece of his own armor out of the wall, Reverb pushed himself back to his feet. And looked up.

And up.

Sweet Primus on a microchip.

He'd seen a carrier just once before, when his colony's mainframe was being updated. The image still haunted him. One mech alone, between the columns of eight central databanks and impossibly linked to all of them, faceplates tilted back, standing quietly in the midst of a datastorm that made Reverb's diodes stand on end from twenty paces away. A manipulator cable had disengaged itself from one supercomputer's port, had swept with profoundly eerie grace for another massive column. He'd seen the glowing cilia and the cluster of attachment spikes and drills on the tip, still crackling with charge, as daedalean and sophisticated as a medic's multitool hands.

They said a carrier could hack anything he touched with those. _Anyone_. It wasn't right. Wasn't anything this side of normal.

Reverb had repressed the shiver up his backstruts and turned to leave - planning to get his file some other orn - and froze. A symbiont was watching him. The thing had crept onto the wall above. He'd seen them before, of course; cassettes went anywhere, got into anything. They'd always seemed innocuous. But with its carrier doing _that _just behind him... Reverb had left quickly, fighting not to flinch under those small, glittering optics.

Reverb really wished he could leave now as well.

Because this ... this was nothing like that other carrier. Disoriented, audials ringing, Reverb watched the chronicler rear back. The big mech's panels arched in flashing display, and there were more than just eight of those fragging cables - too many to count, waving like razor wires in the air - and some of them spearing up through fragging _bodyarmor_, like they'd fragging _melted it_ and Primus knew what they were doing to Stoplock. The red and black mech jerked, screaming, the ready-cogs of his weapons pierced through.

Reverb released the locks on his energon shortblade.

A broad, dagger-sharp sensory panel shifted infinitesimally. In the speed and fury of combat, most mechs would have overlooked the tiny energy-spark released by that unlock. It was only the barest flicker of energon, there and gone-but it was all the warning Soundwave needed. A thick manipulator cable yanked free of Stoplock's struggling frame, snapping backwards to crack across Reverb's faceplates with the metallic squeal of metal on metal. The force of the blow snapped the smaller mech's helm sideways, sent him staggering; and then he went down again, this time as the frame of his friend came crashing down on top of him.

Reverb struggled to free himself from Stoplock's sparking, leaking frame, his fingers closing desperately about the hilt of his shortblade as the carrier mech advanced on them. Then he froze as rumbling snarl vibrated in his audials, a set of bladed teeth snapping microns from his face. "Try your little weapon," snarled the symbiont, (and how the Pit had the thing gotten so close without him knowing?) slinking into full view, ebony and silver armor gleaming dully in the dim light. The thing moved like it had no backstruts, like it was one great, articulated blade. "Try it, and you will soon find yourself short a limb with which to wield it."

Soundwave advanced, fully masked and battle-ready, his primary cables weaving a razor-edged pattern in the air. "Yield." The word was flat, uninflected, and devoid of mercy.

Reverb felt his pumps lock up, frozen in terror. There was nowhere to go; he couldn't even flinch back, trapped under Stoplock's twitching frame. "I yield! I yield!" he cried, vocalizer crackling, unable to even twist a hand free to protect his optics. Stoplock's own limbs spasmed hard in the epileptic aftereffects of a motor control hack - the jerking and inchoate trembling shed more sparks. Stoplock moaned, a pained and static-laced sound. "He yields too!" the downed Autobot gasped. A crowd was beginning to grow - albeit at a distance. Big warframes watched avidly, thoroughly entertained, while civilians hastened to put still more space between themselves and the enraged carrier.

Cradled carefully against Soundwave's side, Ratbat was shielded in back by the flare of a panel and in front by the spread of barbed cables. The symbiont clung tight, shivering and silent, both little sets of claws gripping. One flight surface wrapped itself around the supporting manipulators, the other jerked as he tried to fold it.

The tip of Ravage's tail twitched, a slow swing, as if unlimbering the heavy, mace-like complexity of cutting edges at the end. His jaws gaped a little wider, multifaceted optics gleaming murder, every gear of him awaiting his Master's judgement.

A well-bladed cable swooped downward, stopping with razored edges hovering a bare servo's width from those terrified optics. "Query: describe future actions, should you encounter another cassette mech." Soundwave's question was dry, almost uninterested, as if he were nothing more than a AI tutor testing memory retention. Ravage gave another snarl, the subharmonics rattling across Reverb's plating.

"I-I-won't touch them. Won't lay so much as a talon-tip on a cassette ever again, I swear! Stoplock either!" Reverb said frantically, meaning every word. Terror threatened to overload several circuit relays as his lasercore coupling revved uselessly, gears slipping. As far as he was concerned, he would be a happy mech indeed if he never saw another cassette. Also, if he never saw another data manipulator cable. Primus, even though the thing had retracted its blue-white cilia, it could extend them just as fast, and they'd snake through every seam of him, right into his processor cores, maybe into his spark for all he knew, and then, and then - oh, Primus. Primus. A scream caught in Reverb's vocalizer at he helplessly watched the whorl of drilling blades at the tip of the tentacle rotate, reconfiguring right in front of his cracked optic.

The manipulator cable dipped, hovered-then slowly, with deadly intent, reached outward to drag one chisel-tipped blade in a slow, deliberate line across the front of Reverb's chassis. The drawn-out screech of metal on metal made both the cringing mech and the onlookers wince, armor plating clamping tight in reaction.

Then, with a final considering tap, the blade withdrew. "Your answer, acceptable." Soundwave looked them over, his visored gaze lingering on Stoplock's battered, still-convulsing frame. Then he turned away. "Ravage: leave them." Much as he wanted to tear them apart for the damage done to Ratbat, even here the offlining of another mech would draw unwanted attention from the Enforcers. Their primary objective had to take precedence.

The bladeframe symbiont held his position a fraction longer... then, obedient as a drone, turned and stalked after its master. Reverb went limp beneath his companion's shuddering frame with a gasp, faceplates and chest cover burning.

Around Soundwave, the crowd melted away, mechs turning back to their pursuits with suspicious casualness. At first, it seemed that they were moving away from the carrier - a reaction with which Soundwave was entirely familiar. But there was something off about the pattern of movement, the swirl of the crowd... _/We've got trouble, boss,/_ Buzzsaw's warning came with a live image, a view from above. To Soundwave's right, three warframes - squat, solid shocktroops, in scuffed black and white - shoved mechs out of their way as they darted single-file down a shaky metal rampway, headed for the site of the commotion. They'd arrive in a quarter-breem or less.

Soundwave turned left... and another mech stepped deliberately in front of him, just out of cable-reach. The medium-heavy grounder stood casually, weight to the side, just slightly forward. His surface nanites were battered, but they'd once been black and white as well. The enforcer's warbrand was nearly scuffed out, but the faint indication of bars on either side remained - old marks of rank. The solid mech's ease was deceptive. _ /His weapons are ready-hot,/_ Laserbeak sent along with thermal scans, as he circled wide for a better shot should Soundwave so order, the slender flightframe invisible in the murk overhead.

"Not bad, chronicler," said the enforcer, tilting his head a little, all four optics flashing as he took the big mech's measure. An obsolete frametype, unless he missed his guess - usually all too willing to follow orders. Let's find out. "Bring the bird down. We need to have a little chat, you and I."

Soundwave's head tilted slightly, and he stopped-but made no other effort to obey the enforcer's command. Or to put away his manipulator cables, though the more fragile secondaries were pulled subtly backwards, behind the bulk of his frame and the more heavily armored primaries. "Query: nature of this conversation?" he asked evenly. Ravage, picking up on the new threat, was suddenly very still, a narrowed crimson stare watching the interloper's every motion, ready to move between one instant and the next.

The enforcer arched an elongated optic ridge. Lazily, he ticked each point off on the talons of one hand, wrists subtly turned so that the motion would not foul his aim. His unsettling gaze never left Soundwave, or the bladeframe by his side. "Well now. First, let's discuss why you saw fit to hack a mech, mark a civilian - an aft, admittedly, but a civilian nevertheless - and disrupt this, ah, fine and upstanding business establishment. Second, think we need to talk about this sudden rust-rash of carrier interest in... a likewise fine and upstanding Senate-authorized mine." The enforcer's tone was level, his glyphs reasonable, casual, calming. Delaying.

"Only motor relays hacked," Soundwave pointed out evenly, giving nothing away. "Cortex programming, untouched." He watched the enforcer, gauging their situation. Two civilian mechs had been easy to overpower, especially with the element of surprise and Ravage's assistance. But heavily armored as he was, Soundwave was not a warframe; the enforcer had him outgunned, and once the others arrived, outnumbered. To attempt another attack would only end in either damage, incarceration, or a brutal offlining, none of which would benefit himself or his cohort.

No, Soundwave would need to rely upon older, better skills for this. Especially if he wished to learn what the enforcer knew about this mysterious carrier mech.

"Stoplock: attacked symbiont without provocation," he said, even as he unpacked archives with lightning speed, cross-referencing, picking over IDs, histories, public records. He had the entirety of Cybertron's many wars at his disposal, archived and studied over vorns. Military history was more than just advances and retreats, great battles won or lost-it was about the mecha that fought them. Lesser historians might focus upon the shining names of Air Commanders and Lord Protectors, of Senators and Primes, study endlessly their decisions and their politics. But a truly talented scholar remembered that any battle could turn, for good or for ill, on the actions of the lowliest newsparked soldier. "Carriers: speak for, protect symbionts. Actions, self-defense under law." There. There was the data he needed, tucked among the mustering-out rosters of the Parhelion War. Soundwave inclined his head in a subtle courtesy. "Unit Subcommander Barricade." It was a gamble-but most military mecha remained proud of their rank, even when those duties had long since been taken from them.

Barricade's optics narrowed slightly, the only indication of rapid recalculation. Then his faceplates broadened in a faint expression of pleasure, his backstruts straightened a little. His casual stance seemed to fall away, revealing the shadow of a prideful military bearing, though the enforcer hardly moved. "You've heard of me, then." Barricade was wagering that the carrier hadn't heard too much, didn't have access to _those_ files. "Still, this isn't a conversation we should have here. Think there's a cube at my desk somewhere - back at the station. Stand down, and we'll finish this there." The cadence of his vocalizations was just slightly different, flatter, more millitary. The enforcer's reaction was exactly - precisely - the one Soundwave expected.

Soundwave gave him a nod. "Invitation, accepted." He opened a private line to his cohort, heavily encrypted in layers only a bonded symbiont could hope to decipher. _/Laserbeak, Buzzsaw: follow from air, maintain safe distance. Ratbat, Ravage: will remain with me./ _ He would have preferred that Ravage also disappear into the safety of the shadows, but to do so now in front of the enforcers would be far too suspicious. _/Ratbat … status? Capable of transformation and docking?/_ He could feel the small mech's pain as a throbbing echo along his own frame; but he couldn't afford to take the time for repairs. Not here.

Still shivering, Ratbat exchanged his grip around his carrier's manipulators to press little claws into the seams of Soundwave's armor instead, pulling himself determinately up towards the archivist's shoulder. His crumpled wing hung oddly, not quite folding. He could probably, he thought, angle it enough for transformation. _/Something's glitched about this one, Soundwave. Let me keep an optic on him./_

The other three enforcers shoved their way through the crowd, spreading out around the bigger carrier, weapons online and brandished. Two of them kept a wary distance from the data cables, but the other approached, unhooking a pair of stasis cuffs from his tool latch. Barricade's optics slid to him briefly, and the overeager enforcer stepped back. "This way." Barricade paused, then nodded towards Soundwave's fan of silver manipulators. "We'll attract less attention if you put those away, too. Make my reporting go a whole lot easier." The directive this time was more delicately respectful, probing, trying one hook at a time.

Soundwave waited just long enough that the new enforcer arrivals began to shift uneasily, secondary optics glancing nervously at their squad commander. Then, slowly, he began retracting his cables, blades and claw-tipped ends folding back into the segmented armor. They coiled back into his frame, and Soundwave lowered his forearm, giving Ratbat a talon-hold to grip as he lifted the injured symbiont to his shoulder, despite his misgivings. Ratbat would be much safer docked inside his carrier. _/Ratbat: allowed to remain, but required to stay alert. Will retreat with Ravage if further violence occurs./ _ The command was laced with imperative modifiers, allowing no room for dissension.

The small mech nodded, and Soundwave turned to Barricade, ignoring the other surrounding enforcers as if they didn't exist. "Soundwave: understands, Subcommander." He retracted his battlemask, extending his hand towards the walkway in silent invitation. "Willing to follow, at your leisure."

Barricade's secondary optics tracked the carrier's short delay, his facilitation of the smaller mech's movements, the little symbiont's firm and unquestioning nod. Soundwave behaved, moved, spoke, as if his designation were still of central importance - to himself, if not Cybertron.

The other enforcers relaxed, as if the chronicler were somehow less dangerous with his cables sheathed. Barricade knew better. He fell back to walk slightly beside the carrier, on the other side of the sinuous pace of the bladeframe symbiont. "Much appreciated - Soundwave," he said, adding as if out of the force of long habit a non-specific glyph of respect to the phrase, such as might be applied to a fellow officer. Pride-up was going to be the name of this game. For the time being.

And here, Barricade thought, he'd imagined this shift was going to be _boring_.

.

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Barricade, of course, is pulled straight from Antepathy's characterization - one of the most intense and flat out gorgeous I've ever read for any character *anywhere.* Antepathy's Barricade is just too shiny - we couldn't keep our hands off him! This doesn't even begin to measure up to her mastery, however, so if you're looking for something to read next...


	3. Chapter 3

The enforcers made no further mention of Soundwave's other symbionts as they escorted him, though uneasy optics sometimes slid to the skies. The enforcer command center had been blasted into the base of one massive tower, and had perhaps once been a hanger or storage facility of some sort, to judge by the side of the entrances, now mainly sealed over with thick sheetmetal armor. Weapons dealers and rambling, unpowered hovels were common in the surrounding broken alleys. The civilian enforcement sigil was branded boldly into the corroded iron above the garrison, but none of the enforcers seemed to wear it themselves.

Struggling empties and virus dealers were dragged in or out, rarely under their own power, and enforcers cast sidelong glances at Soundwave's unbound frame. Inside, the lighting was nearly as poor as outside. Metallic shrieks issued from one tall passageway; Barricade led them in the opposite direction. A door hatch irised open on a room so spartan, it likely served as an interrogation chamber - just two seating platforms, one with attachment links for stasis cuffs, arranged on either side of a metal table which itself was solidly bolted in place. "If you would, Soundwave?" Barricade gestured to one platform, as he laid several cubes on the table. He took a flask from another enforcer, who retreated - probably to stand just on the other side of the hatch.

"For them as well?" Barricade asked, spilling a measure of clear blue energon - probably strongarmed from some merchant - into two of the cubes.

"Negative. Offer appreciated, but unnecessary." Not strictly the truth-not on the minimal rations they all received-but a polite answer dictated by caution, nonetheless. The energon did not appear contaminated, but Soundwave was too experienced to trust anything given to him by a strange mech. Much less a strange mech who obviously had an agenda of his own. His systems could handle a fair number of contaminants; his symbionts, less so.

Soundwave sat, and surveyed the room in all its battered, stained glory. One way in and out, and walls thick enough that the dents made by angry mecha hadn't even buckled them at the seams. He wondered if the close confines were intended to be an additional, subtle intimidation all their own, or simply were a side effect of the enforcers' obvious lack of resources.

Ravage did a brief circuit of the space, noting the tiny hidden lenses that denoted cameras and the inset pickups for audio surveillance. He sent a brief databurst to Soundwave, sharing what he'd found, then silently crouched in his master's shadow, with only the scarlet gleam of his optics betraying his presence.

Soundwave picked up the cube closest to his seat, giving Barricade a spare nod of thanks. Despite the risk, offered energon was too rare to waste, and refusing would antagonize the enforcer besides. He studied the energon within for a moment-clear-filtered and gleaming blue-white, it appeared to be good quality mid-grade, far better than anything he could afford on a regular basis-then took a cautious sip, letting it slide over the filters at the back of his intake as autonomic processes kicked in, checking for adulterants. While the analyses were running, he watched Barricade.

"Your desk, quite tidy," he said mildly. If this was an enforcer's office, he'd paint himself gold and call himself Prime. "Query: conversation, official in nature?"

Barricade's centermost two optics shuttered momentarily, perhaps a gesture of amusement - though one very subtly... different from most of his other apparently reflexive movements. "Don't think there's any need for that, do you?" Barricade answered, picking up his own cube. His seating platform was a little taller than Soundwave's - though not enough to make up for their height differences. The enforcer's faceplates, originally mass-produced, were not particularly mobile, his expressions difficult to read. "Mechs denting each other up is pretty common down here. So is bureaucratic inefficiency. Turns out, the protest that, ah - Stoplock? - filed has already been misplaced." Barricade tipped his cube up, swallowed. Good faith gesture, check. Something easy now, open-ended, conversational. "It's less common to find directive-level mechs down here of their own will."

Interesting. Assuming the enforcer was telling the truth, he'd saved Soundwave a fair amount of inconvenience. Which left the question of what Barricade wanted in return ….

Ratbat shifted minutely, watching the black and white enforcer with narrowed optics. He was well aware of the usual exchange of favors and blackmail that the lower ranks of Iacon's civilian security divisions used to supplement their increasingly limited allotments of energon and supplies. And yet-somehow, he didn't think this was just another backroom deal. Whatever Barricade was fishing for, he wanted it badly enough that he hadn't resorted to the usual strongarm tactics. Instead, he was going out of his way to court Soundwave's favor. Curious.

"Objective, not to cause trouble," Soundwave replied. "Mention made of other carrier mech seen in vicinity of this mine. My concern: symbionts and host still missing, possibly requiring rescue." Truthful enough, and easily corroborated by his very public confrontation with the mine overseer. Whether or not Barricade believed him, of course, was another matter entirely.

"I see." Barricade tilted his cube, one pair of optics following the thick slosh of energon contemplatively. Strange. The carrier responded as if he had nothing at all to hide. Which, given the subject at hand, was nothing short of bizarre. It had been a very long time since anyone had bothered even trying to play the innocence chit with him; Barricade found it rather refreshing. "And what leads you to believe he is - they are - in need of rescue?"

The results of Soundwave's analysis came back: the energon was clean. Or at the very least, uncontaminated by anything Soundwave was familiar with, and he doubted Barricade had the resources-or the need-to try and poison him with anything more exotic. Taking another, deeper draught from his cube, Soundwave took a moment to savor the taste. It might not be high grade, but it was clean and smooth and charged his systems with a subtle kick he hadn't felt in … longer than he cared to remember.

"Symbiont remains, found in tunnels," he finally said baldly, making no effort to hide the truth with polite circumlocutions. "Minebreak's offlining, recent. Rest of cohort, still unaccounted for."

The bare statement gave Barricade momentary pause. How could the carrier know what had happened in a place he'd never been? But then, the big mech's injured symbiont looked agile enough to get itself almost anywhere, as cassettes tended to do. During the war, there'd sometimes be half a dozen scattered around the battlefield, doing Primus knew what. Getting a mech as big as Soundwave into the mine, however, clearly was proving rather more difficult for them. The enforcer weighed his options a moment. Well now. So long as the carrier was being so forthcoming... "What do you suppose they were looking for?" Barricade asked, tone casual, alert for even the smallest of tells. Soundwave, unfortunately, gave him little to work with. Unless 'stony incomprehension' was a tell.

"Name of Minebreak's master, currently unknown," Soundwave replied. It was surprisingly difficult to admit how little he knew about the missing mecha. In a way, it felt like a personal failure. How could he not be able to find out something as simple as a mech's name-especially the name of a fellow carrier-mech? He tilted his head, concealing his unease. "Unusual, that a chronicler team entered mine without your knowledge. Symbiont death, also apparently unknown. Query: nature of your interest?"

Ratbat shifted uneasily, a movement so small as to be imperceptible. If the enforcers were responsible for Minebreak's death-or worse, if *this* enforcer was responsible-Soundwave's tactic of answering questions with questions might very well backfire. He disliked being trapped in this tiny room, being questioned by an arrogant enforcer. He disliked even more knowing that it was his fault they were here in the first place.

Barricade stilled, a momentary and appraising pause. Interesting spike over baseline there. He tilted his cube in contemplation, touching each edge idly against the metal tabletop - corner, corner, corner... a faintly abashed, non-threatening sort of fidgeting, easy to read but not too obvious. Barricade's optics slid away from Soundwave for a few beats, as if the enforcer were decompressing old archives. "Don't know how much of the Parhelion theatre you remember," he said, "or the Telorian campaigns. But quite a few of your class served near the front, bringing intel back from impossible places. Saved all our skidplates, more than a few times." The enforcer glanced briefly to Soundwave's symbiotes. "Your missing mech is Amplitude. Don't know how he gained access or what he was looking for. Do know that chroniclers were slagging useful once. Should be again."

Amplitude. The name was familiar, though the mech hadn't ever been one of Soundwave's intimates. He queried his symbionts, pinging them the name. As always, he relied upon their memory more than his own, and once again, his faith proved justified.

_/Amplitude .../_ Buzzsaw replied after a momentary pause. _/Investigative researcher. He was known for tracking down data other mecha wanted buried-he loved secrets, the more explosive, the better. Worked under the auspices of upper-level Enforcement sometimes, some data-mining-was even involved in a few military and senatorial investigations. Had a cohort known for getting into trouble and loving every minute of it./ _ He hesitated. _/Minebreak … is an odd fit for a carrier like that./_

_/Amplitude's cohort was small-if he had lost a symbiont, or more than one symbiont, he might have been desperate to find replacements,/ _ Ratbat suggested, cold practicality overcoming his reluctance to mention the possibility. A carrier's status was determined by their symbionts, and no new chronicler mechs, carrier or symbiont, had been created for many vorns. Their class had been dwindling for some time; it was not impossible that desperate need might have forced a symbiont to accept a carrier's offer, regardless of how ill-matched they might have been.

"Amplitude …" Soundwave paused as if he were unarchiving memory nodes, searching for information. Letting Barricade wait, even though his cohort had already provided the information he'd needed at literally the speed of thought. "Had a reputation. Was widely connected, once. This district, the mine, both odd places for him to be." A partial truth; from the data-profiles Buzzsaw had compiled for him, Amplitude once had connections that stretched into both the civilian and the military intelligence services … but that network had long since attenuated into nothingness. No one needed chroniclers now. Not for investigations or anything else.

Barricade's attention sharpened, though his tone stayed neutral. He could hardly fault the other mech for playing games with information. It made this little exchange all the more entertaining. "And why, exactly, is that?"

With the ease of long experience, Soundwave located several old files over the public network - a spotty affair down here - and sent the relevant tagging frequencies.

Barricade's optics widened as he scanned through the cursory public offerings. Oh. _That_ Amplitude. The enforcer had long since dismounted the original files from his quantum storage, keeping only the headings in order to preserve memory space, but a little rapid review recalled just how much of a stir the exposures had caused. During the early days of the war, several civilian and military officials had been caught offering weaponry to an alien faction which, shortly thereafter, proved to be just as aggressive towards Cybertronians as the enemy. The mech who had put the pieces together, infiltrated and uncovered the conspiracy, had received a commendation from the Prime himself. The unfortunate traitors had been subject to the Lord Protector's very personal, and very untender, mercies.

Barricade tapped his talons on the table, processing. This ... this was fascinating. And useful, if Amplitude still excelled at disruption. If he was the same mech. An enforcer-database search for archived images turned up a few high-res scans, all old, dated near the end of the war. Nothing since then, but they matched closely enough with the mine's surveillance feed, and the miners' descriptions.

This could conceivably come back to bite him. To bite _all of them_.

Barricade had always found opportunity in chaos. And the timing of all this... well. It just couldn't be passed up.

Coming to a decision, Barricade pulled a small object from a slot in his armor. He slid the little chip of silica across the table. The outer casing was complex, highly engraved, imprinted with holograms in at least five dimensions. The transmitter inside had a resonant quality to its field, even presently inactive. It gleamed in the dim light like an artifact from another civilization, far departed from the squalor of the slums, from this fear-stained room. "I am sympathetic. Unfortunately, Soundwave, a mere enforcer doesn't have the authority to permit a mech into the mines. The mine inspectors, due in a few joor, have an entrance key. You might try them."

Soundwave's expression never changed, even as he took the encrypted badge, folding fingers over and subspacing it in one smooth motion. The video feeds for this room must be offline for Barricade to take such a risk-which brought up the question of why the enforcer was doing it in the first place. Frustratingly, there was no way he could ask without giving the game away, not in a room full of listening devices. "Query: likelihood of their cooperation?" he said instead, for the benefit of any audience.

Barricade's laugh was a low, grinding sound. He downed the rest of his cube, left the flask on the table as he stood. "Like I said, you can ask them." A pair of optics slid briefly to the symbiont clinging to Soundwave's shoulder. "When you're finished, the officer outside will escort you to the exit. Now. If you'll excuse me, it sounds like there are some helms which need denting." And maybe, just maybe, a riot to prepare, depending on how much havoc a handful of unwitting mechs could cause. Hope springs eternal. "Amalgamous' own luck, chronicler."

Ratbat twisted around to watch the enforcer leave, waiting until the door had irised shut on the busy corridor. The screaming from the distant cells, he noticed with audials twitching, apparently hadn't ever stopped. _/Definitely, definitely glitched, Soundwave./_

_/Agreed. Also, more knowledgeable than expected./ _ The ident-badge Barricade had slid across the table was worth a great deal-four orns worth of midgrade at least-on the black market. Yet the enforcer had handed it over as if it were nothing more than an official reprimand for brawling. There had been no mention of recompense, or of favors owed. It all had been just a little too easy, which made Soundwave wonder what other games were afoot.

His first instinct was to pull back, to retreat and gather more information for analysis. Making moves without sufficient data to understand the other players was a fundamentally flawed strategy, and one that could easily lead to disaster.

But one symbiont was already dead. Others might be dying, trapped and unable to free themselves. They didn't have the time for Soundwave to test the waters he had waded into; he would have to trust in his own abilities, as well as his cohort, to see this game out to the end. Barricade's gift, unlooked-for and laden with expectations as it was, would get them in; Soundwave would just have to ensure that he got them back out.

He lifted his arm, inviting Ratbat to climb down to an armored forearm for inspection. The symbiont's wing drooped painfully, the crumpled surface plating binding the joints and making it impossible to fold normally. Several of the tiny antigrav nodes on the surface had also been damaged, and would need replacement. _/Soundwave: can make temporary repairs to free the joint,/_ he said after a few kliks worth of scans. _/Work, will be painful. Flight, impaired until full repairs are made./_ He suppressed the urge to order Ratbat home; damaged as he was, there was no guarantee that the little symbiont would make it there safely. And if the worst happened, and Soundwave and the others never returned … a single damaged symbiont stood little chance of survival on his own.

For his part, Ratbat knew perfectly well what happened when he became injured - he invariably got sent someplace safe. And then Soundwave and the others would be wandering around, down here all by themselves, and he knew they'd be inefficient about it. They'd... they'd waste fuel and time and get lost and Primus knew what else, without him. Ratbat couldn't let that happen - not even if he *was* the cause of this particular delay. The little symbiont made his way down Soundwave's armored forearm. _/Fix it,/_ he sent, carefully taking his vocalizers offline - both the standard range and the ultrasonic one. He settled himself into his carrier's hands as Soundwave brought his other palm up, the whole of the symbiont's body cradled by the length of those cupped talons. Wincing, he spread his damaged wing to its fullest extent, hooking the small end-claw into one of Soundwave's armor seams, to keep the flight surface from accidentally jerking closed. _/ It will be enough so that I can ride with you or Ravage, at the least. The rest of the repairs can wait until we all get back./_

Soundwave nodded, extending his field, pulsing _reassurance/concern_ through their bond. _/Necessary repairs, not long to complete,/ _he sent, uncoiling several of his smallest secondary cables and pulling a few supplies out of subspace. The crumpled wing plating was punctured through in three places, and mangled in several more. Scanning, Soundwave separated out the disabling damage from the merely cosmetic, which could be left alone. The hampered joint was the main concern-some of the torn plating had been pushed inward, sawing against fine internal wiring each time Ratbat attempted to move the wing.

The first of Soundwave's manipulator cables, blades folded flat, nudged against the symbiont's chest. Ratbat lifted his head obediently, spreading his fragile chestplates to expose the socket there. The carrier's cilia blossomed out to touch the familiar edges of the port, then slipped inside to twine with the waiting connectors. The bladed multitools flared, reconfigured, locking the datacable neatly into place, flush against the symbiont's armor. Ratbat cycled a quiet vent, and laid his head down upon the thin armor of Soundwave's cable, feeling the metal warm as his host prepared the datalink.

Being hardlined by his carrier didn't exactly abate the pain, but did make it... easier to bear.

As with Ravage, the great depth of the little mech's memory well irised open for Soundwave, but this time, the carrier's interest was in the comparatively thin shell of physical sensation, the hardware and software that were the least part of a symbiont's being. Ratbat's firewalls were no bar at all to Soundwave's access - they were essentially the carrier's own, scaled down and simplified for a symbiont's far more limited processing capacity. Soundwave selected the sensory pathways and felt along them, muting a few to ease pain - so much as he could while maintaining sensation - monitoring them all.

A symbiont was small enough that even Soundwave's most delicate repairs could easily go awry, if he could not also *feel* what he was doing.

Those jagged ruptures in the wing plating would need to be removed before anything else. Soundwave bent to the task. The blades at the tips of several manipulator cables rotated, layered together, split into piny pincers. The instruments moved to delicately reach and pull the buckled plating upward, to a position where the pointed edges could be cut free. He worked as swiftly as he could, acutely aware of Ratbat's every flinch and tremble. However, the symbiont never made a sound or tried to jerk away, enduring stoically.

The sharp edges of the punctures now smooth, Soundwave bent the glideplates back into their normal overlapping positions. The fit wasn't perfect-deformed metal surfaces still scraped against each other-but at least now it was functional, giving Ratbat back full use of the limb. After inspecting the other tears for further hidden damage, Soundwave layered metal-mesh over them, sealing off the delicate systems within from outside contaminants. The metal-mesh also would be consumed by self-repair nanites as they did their work, encouraging them to concentrate on the worst-damaged areas.

One last check to numb a few sensory nodes, and then Soundwave straightened. The cilia disengaged a few at a time, drawing up into their sheath, giving the symbiont time to stabilise his own systems. Then the lock-configured blades released their hold, and the cable withdrew, waiting until the little mech could lift his own head before moving entirely away. "Ratbat: status?"

Ratbat shuttered and unshuttered his optics a few times, folding his armor back to cover the data socket. He twisted his helm around to watch as he manipulated the damaged wing. It was stiff, didn't move quite right, and he couldn't feel it a great deal - but it also did not hurt much, and he could fold it. And he'd be able to fly on it, which is what mattered. Ratbat craned his helm up, remembered to bring his vocalizers back online, and squeaked a reassurance.

_/All better,/_ the symbiont sent, climbing to a more upright position in Soundwave's cupped talons - then his optics narrowed as he cast his carrier a suspicious look. _/Except. Not good enough to fly home. Definitely not./_ Soundwave's level regard gave him pause. Perhaps he could divert his carrier. _/Let's take that fuel with us,/_ he proposed, selecting the most interesting - in Ratbat's estimation - distraction in the room. Not, mind, that there were many to choose from.

Soundwave vented a sigh at Ratbat's obvious ploy. _/Ratbat, will inform us if injury worsens,/ _he ordered, then looked over at the indicated flask. It was tempting, and they could certainly use the fuel, but … _/Energon, not ours./_ he said reluctantly.

Ravage's snarl was so quiet as to be almost inaudible. _/All of this-it feels like a trap./ _ His bladed tail lashed once. _/I don't like it./_

_/Alternatives, nonexistent,/ _Soundwave reminded all of them. Then, on a narrower band to Ravage alone, _/These games, not new to us./_

_/Against tower academics, not warframes,/_ Ravage replied, still unhappy. _ /Now more than your reputation is at risk./_

Outside, the two flightframes carved agitated arcs in the dense, smoggy air. They might not be able to see what was going on, but their link to the cohort was not attenuated by this minor physical distance. _/A trap? Ravage, can you send us your impressions of the badge?/ _Buzzsaw queried. The bond-link thickened with dense sensory transmission.

After some discussion with his class-brother, comparing Ravage's memory with their own detailed recollections, Laserbeak reached out to contact his carrier. _/We wish to examine the emblem ourselves, Soundwave. But it seems very like the credentials we once carried./ _ Well, Soundwave had carried them, technically. Those ident-badges were heavy. _/It does not appear to have been tampered with./_

Ratbat, secure in the knowledge that Soundwave had found something else to worry him, clambered over his carrier's thumb-talon and started scaling his arm. The little symbiont kept his damaged limb closed, climbing with his talons and the claws of one wing only. Ratbat had spent a great deal of time, over the past vorns, witnessing the rise of the black market, observing the mechs who engaged in trade for goods outside their ration-set. Mecha sometimes exchanged things for influence, for future favors... but not, usually, with strangers. _/That glitched enforcer certainly wants something. Since he didn't tell us what, it is likely a thing which our present course of action will net him, anyway./_ Pleased with himself, Ratbat at least reached the summit of Soundwave's shoulder... and then noticed the sudden silence over the bond.

The little glideframe looked down at Ravage's narrowed optics and long, long teeth... then over at Soundwave's wary stillness. Oh. _/That's... probably not good, is it?/_

_..._

_..._

Both flightframes took a breem to examine Soundwave's ident-badge, once he emerged from the enforcers' base.

Getting out had been surprisingly easy. A young black-and-white, clearly sparked near the end of the war, had addressed the carrier with nervous respect and escorted him to the same front entrance. The enforcer had even offered further accompaniment back to the main market - though he'd not seemed disappointed when Soundwave refused.

Rather the opposite, in fact.

In the momentary quiet of an alley, the flightframes studied Barricade's 'gift' in exacting detail, with all the sensors they possessed. They uploaded their perfect memory files to Soundwave, let him run the comparisons with his far larger processors. The transmitter identified its bearer as a level three special projects structural inspector - a new title, and not one with which Soundwave was familiar, but clearly a high one. There seemed to be nothing wrong with the badge.

Soundwave could not discount the possibility that the enforcers meant to make some example of him, turn on him, ensure that he was discovered. But retreating was no option at all.

The only way out now... was down.

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Cowrite with HopeofDawn. Barricade's characterization swiped unashamedly from Antepathy's incredible fics! Thanks very much to the reviewers - without you, we'd definitely have given up posting. Thank you, thank you! )


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